ST. LOUIS — For the second time in 2024, the City Museum has broken another world record. This time, it's for the world's longest shoelace at more than a half-mile long.
The City Museum already has several Guinness World Records titles, including the longest pencil, the longest seesaw, the largest tennis racket and the largest gathering of people with underwear on their heads, but the newest record-breaking title is a good fit for the museum, which resides in the former Annex of the International Shoe Company building.
RELATED: City Museum up for best children's museum, best immersive art experience in USA Today's 10Best
The process of creating the record-breaking shoelace wasn't as simple as you might think.
The Shoelace Factory, now located on the second floor of the museum, crafted the shoelace using antique textile machinery and took about 24 hours of weaving to compete. To finish it off, aglets had to be custom-made for the ends of the lace.
"We have learned a lot about the process of breaking another world record,” City Museum Director of Marketing Katy Enrique said in a statement. “This included proving that the shoelace was created from woven threads, officially measured and completely functional as a shoelace.”
Finding a location big enough to measure the 2,729-foot shoelace was another difficult task. To pay tribute to the city, the Guinness World Records survey crew ultimately measured the shoelace across the historic Eads Bridge.
